Once Upon a Time (Book)
Once Upon a Time (Book) Created By: Unknown Origin: Enchanted Forest Current Location: Storybrooke Type: Magic Book Used For: Reading Stories Writing Stories Color: Brown and Gold First Appearance: Pilot Latest Appearance: The Final Battle, Part 2 Henry's Once Upon a Time Book, commonly referred to as Henry's Book or simply The Book, is a magical item featured on ABC's Once Upon a Time. It first appears in the Pilot of Season 1. History 'Before First Curse' For eons, the Sorcerer and his Apprentice have chosen an Author, whose sole responsibility is to record stories in a book using a magic quill. During December of 1966, after the last Author has died, The Apprentice poses as an employee from a publishing company and sends an aspiring writer named Isaac Heller a letter requesting his services. Upon meeting The Apprentice, Isaac is asked to select a pen out of various pens, to which he picks a quill and becomes the next Author. Like the previous Authors before him, Isaac's responsibilities include recording tales in the storybook with the quill's power, but he cannot use the quill to write his own happy ending, which will result in his termination as Author. At some point in the Underworld, some people stage an attempted rebellion against Hades, and rumors spread about a book capable of defeating him. Sometime after becoming the Author, Isaac changes a story in the book by manipulating The Apprentice into infusing a child with darkness and banishing her to another realm. Deeming him too corrupt, The Apprentice then imprisons him in the book's door illustration as punishment. 'During First Curse' One morning in Storybrooke, a schoolteacher, Mary Margaret, discovers a book of fairytales in her loft closet. At the school grounds, she notices one of her students, Henry, looking glum. He expresses frustration about not belonging in Storybrooke and his belief that his adoptive mother, Regina, doesn't truly love him. To cheer Henry up, she gives him the storybook, by explaining that the stories in it signify things will get better for him if he holds onto hope. While flipping through the book, he looks at a photo of a princess. When he looks up, he briefly sees Mary Margaret dressed as the princess. On a different page, the princess and a prince hold an infant girl, whose name he mysteriously recognizes as "Emma". From reading the storybook, Henry begins believing the entire town is under a curse cast by none other by The Evil Queen, who is also apparently his mother, Regina. He becomes convinced the townspeople have forgotten their true selves while trapped in a time freeze. Alarmed by her son's "wild" imagination, Regina sends him to therapy sessions with Dr. Hopper. Despite this, Henry never gives up on his ideas. One day, he skips therapy and steals Mary Margaret's credit card to look up his birth mother's information. Certain that his birth mother, Emma, is the savior who will break the curse, Henry shows up on her doorstep in Boston. During the drive back to Storybrooke, he animatedly talks to Emma about the curse. Once she drops Henry off at his house, he purposely leaves his storybook in her car. Meeting Regina for the first time, Emma casually mentions the book, but the latter has never heard of it. On the drive out of town, Emma finally notices the storybook is still in her car. Distracted, she crashes the vehicle into the town sign. The next day, Emma meets Henry's teacher, Ms. Blanchard, who admits giving him the book because he's a lonely child, and she had hopes it'd help foster hope in his heart. After Emma brings Henry home again, Regina coldly urges her to stay out of Henry's life. Inside the house, she takes away the book from Henry. From flipping through the pages, Regina sees pictures of her former self, The Evil Queen. Continuing to read through the book, Regina notices the last few pages are torn out. When she questions Henry, he flippantly states it's just an old book. Regina, hurt by Henry thinking she's some "evil queen", asserts that she is his mother. In turn, he callously remarks that she is not his mother. Later on, Henry secretly gives Emma the torn out pages to prove she is the child of Prince Charming and Snow White. He warns against ever letting Regina, or The Evil Queen, see them or else she will know they are trying to break the curse. Meanwhile, Regina schemes to make Emma look bad in Henry's eyes. She manipulates a conversation so Emma says, on cue, that Henry is crazy, which he walks in and overhears. During Henry's therapy session with Dr. Hopper, Emma comes to apologize to the boy. In an effort to understand his insistent imagination, she agrees that the curse is crazy and burns the missing pages of the book so Regina doesn't find them. Emma reasons that she only said what was necessary to throw Regina off their trail, which Henry thinks is brilliant. Upon seeing John Doe in the hospital, Henry shows Emma a picture of Prince Charming in his book and notes that both men have the same scar under their chins. Believing Mary Margaret is Snow White, Prince Charming's true love, Henry persuades Emma into having Mary Margaret to read the Snow White fairytale to John Doe. Mary Margaret plays along, in order to help Henry see fairytales aren't real, but when John Doe grabs her hand while she is reading, she calls for Dr. Whale to take a look. Dr. Whale detects no change in John Doe's vitals and chalks it up to Mary Margaret hallucinating. After he sends her away, however, he phones Regina to inform her of what happened. During the night, John Doe awakens from his coma and wanders out of the hospital to search for someone. Having dreams of what he believes to be his past life, Sheriff Graham visits Henry and asks him if he is in his book. Henry tells him the story of The Huntsman, who spared Snow White's life, and as a result, The Evil Queen ripped out his heart in order to keep him as a henchman. He also shows Graham a picture of the vault, where the hearts are kept, leading Graham to suspect his heart is hidden there. Emma discovers two orphans, Ava and Nicholas Zimmer, whose mother passed away recently. Henry shows Emma his book once again to point out that the children are Hansel and Gretel. Emma does not believe this, but Henry insists that their father abandoned them, but he must still be in Storybrooke because of the curse. After hiding his book at the castle playground, Henry rushes back to look for it when the entire area is bulldozed on Regina's orders. However, he is unable to find the book and believes it is destroyed. Later, to make up for his lost book, Regina gifts him a hand-held game console. A town outsider, August, takes Emma to the wishing well for a drink. When they get to this well, they read a plaque that states that this water has magical properties with the ability to return what was once lost. Emma does not believe this, but drinks the water anyway. Later, she is surprised to find Henry's book floating in a puddle underneath her car, which was left there by none other than August, who has been secretly adding new story pages to the book. Unknown to her, this is a ploy enacted by him to convince her to believe in magic and, most importantly, the curse. Ruby, after quitting her job at the diner, is hired by Emma to answer phone calls at the sheriff station. Henry tells Emma about Ruby's story in the book, which reveals she is Red Riding Hood, and because of this, Ruby is good at finding things. While researching the disappearance of missing resident Kathryn Nolan, Ruby searches the Toll Bridge for clues on Emma's orders and finds a jewelry box with a human heart inside. Whilst combing the border of Storybrooke in her car for a missing Mary Margaret, she accidentally hits a man on the road, Jefferson, and apologizes by driving him home. Little does she know, Jefferson has his own hidden intentions for Emma, who he drugs with sedatives. Under his coercion, she is forced to follow him to another room, where he strangely asks her to make a hat "work" with magic. Believing she possesses magic due to her status as the curse's savior, Jefferson only wishes to go home to his daughter, Grace, who he believes is now the next door neighbors' daughter, Paige. Realizing this man thinks himself to be the Mad Hatter, Emma plays along with his ideas in order to escape. After this ordeal, in which she also helps Mary Margaret escape from him, Emma joins Henry at his school, where she sees Paige. Going by a hunch, she asks to see the storybook, and finds drawing depictions of the Mad Hatter and his daughter that closely resemble Jefferson and Paige. After Mary Margaret is charged as a suspect in the murder of Kathryn, Emma is reading through the storybook when August tries to inspire her efforts in exonerating her friend. He asks about the extent of her lie-detecting abilities, and how it relates to his writing. When he suggests she look at the case from the beginning, Emma brings him to the crime scene at the Toll Bridge, where Kathryn's heart was found in a hole. As Emma digs near this area, she discovers a shovel piece, which leads her and August, with Henry's help, to investigate Regina's garage. They find a shovel matching the piece they found, however, when Emma returns the next day with a search warrant, a different shovel is in place. Believing August is helping Regina, Emma accuses him of conspiring against her until finding out the true backstabber is Sidney, who is spying on her for the mayor. Soon after, Kathryn is discovered alive behind the alley and Mary Margaret is cleared of the murder charges. While at the diner with Emma, Henry informs her the story of Pinocchio has recently been added to the book. August, the alias of Pinocchio, takes Emma out of Storybrooke on his motorcycle to the spot where she was found as a baby. He admits being the boy who found her, which she is skeptical of. To prove magic is real, August shows her his wooden leg, however, her lack of belief in magic prevents her from seeing what is actually there. To her surprise, August believes in the curse and also thinks she is the savior who will save everyone. She, with intentions of getting Henry away from Regina, rejects his claims and leaves. Following a failed attempt to leave Storybrooke with Henry, in which the boy stops her by insisting she needs to break the curse, Emma realizes taking him away is not in his best interests. Fearing her presence is also not beneficial to him, she tells Regina of her plans to leave town permanently. Regina, who made a poisoned apple turnover, gives it to Emma as a parting gift, in the hopes the savior will eat it and fall into an eternal sleep so Henry will be hers. Things do not go accordingly, with Henry discovering the apple turnover, and in desperation to make Emma believe the curse is real, he bites into it, falling unconscious shortly afterward. Worried about Henry's state, Emma rushes him to the hospital, where she attempts to work out a cause for why he fainted. She empties out Henry's backpack and spots the book just as she realizes there is no logical answer and that magic may be involved. Once her hands touch the book, she receives a flash of memories, allowing her to see her father putting her in the wardrobe before the curse overtook the whole land. 'After First Curse' While Emma and Mary Margaret are trapped in another realm, David faces the pressures of finding a way to rescue them as well as being a leader to the townspeople. From reading the storybook, Henry learns the hat that took away Emma and Mary Margaret belongs to a man named the Mad Hatter. After willingly taking the sleeping curse, David's spirit travels to the Netherworld, where he attempts to relay a message to Mary Margaret about Cora and how to defeat her. While David remains asleep, Henry begins reading him the Snow White fairytale from his storybook. During a hectic night in Storybrooke, a stranger is admitted to the hospital, where Dr. Whale reconciles himself with demons in his past life. The next morning, Emma and her parents return to the loft since alleviating the stranger crisis. Henry learns Dr. Whale's true identity is Dr. Frankenstein, which is a story that doesn't exist in the book. From this, he suspects because Dr. Frankenstein isn't from the Enchanted Forest, there may be people from other worlds who were also taken by the curse. After August is given a second chance at life by reverting to Pinocchio, Marco keeps his old belongings, including a door illustration from the storybook, in his woodshop. 'After Second Curse' With the accidental return of Robin Hood's previously deceased wife, Marian, he chooses to end his current relationship with Regina and honor his marriage vows. A heartbroken Regina wishes to kill Marian, however, she later realizes the other woman is not her problem, and her future with Robin can be fulfilled if the storybook Author rewrites her a happy ending. Grabbing the book, she summons Sidney in his mirror and explains her plan to find the Author. When Regina prods Henry about the storybook Author's identity, he learns why she wants to find the writer. Coining the mission Operation Mongoose, Henry decides to join her in this quest. Later, he suspects Mr. Gold possibly knows something about the Author. Going undercover, Henry gains an apprenticeship at the pawn shop in the hopes of gathering information. In her vault, Regina sadly studies all the storybook pages illustrating happy endings to stories. Despite knowing he must focus on saving Marian, Robin rushes in and proclaims he cannot erase Regina from his heart. Dismayed with his confession, Regina steels herself by asserting they absolutely cannot be in each other's lives. She then leaves for home, where Henry sees her angrily flipping through the storybook. He inquiries about her relationship with Robin, which she confirms is over. Choosing his heart's desire over honor, Robin later seeks out Regina, choosing to be with her, which leads to them spending the night together. The day after, Regina is remorseful about her actions because Robin is still a married man and tries to prove that they are not meant to be by showing him the storybook. This leads him to researching the book at the library, and to a mysterious discovery of a new storybook page featuring himself and Regina. He believes it's a sign they have a future together, which gives Regina a glimmer of hope. With Ingrid's defeat, the freezing spell she cast on Marian thaws out. Regina, having previously taken out Marian's heart to keep the spell from killing her, returns it to her. Despite that Regina believes Robin should stay with his wife for Roland's sake, Marian openly declares to her that she doesn't want to be with him if he doesn't truly love her. Later in the day, as Marian and Roland play by a lake, Robin confesses to Regina that he is still choosing her over his wife. Regina is concerned how this will reflect in his son's eyes, but he believes it's better to live honestly and set an example for him. He then shows her the storybook image of them as Regina smiles hopefully. However, their possible future with each other comes to an end when Marian is re-affected by remnants of Ingrid's spell, causing Regina to persuade Robin into leaving town with his wife, as she can only survive if there is no magic. At the town border, Robin shares a final kiss with Regina before he steps over the line. Once he is gone, a saddened Regina rips up the storybook illustration of them and then tosses the pieces onto the ground. While searching the Sorcerer's mansion, Henry discovers a hidden library with numerous blank storybooks, and later leads both Emma and Regina to the room. Learning of Operation Mongoose, Emma decides to join Henry and Regina in their search for the Author. Resuming her role as mayor of Storybrooke, Regina moves all her belongings back into the office. At some point during or after this, she retrieves all the torn pieces of the storybook image, tapes everything together and stores the reassembled photo in a drawer. As Regina is looking through the storybook for clues on the Author, Emma stops by with a root beer for her. Searching for a beer opener, Emma accidentally opens a drawer and sees the photo of Regina and Robin Hood. Regina hesitantly explains how Robin mysteriously found the image and his belief it was hope for their future together. From consulting with an "Oxford professor", Belle provides a ritual that Regina must enact to free the nuns from the hat. After Mother Superior is freed, Regina approaches her to show her one of the blank storybooks from the mansion. As Regina discloses her reason for needing the Author, who she believes is also the Sorcerer. However, Mother Superior clarifies they are not the same person, and only the Author can help her, although he has not been seen for a long time. When asked by Emma why the Author disappeared, Mother Superior has no answers, but she believes there are clues in his works to explain it. Emma then inquiries if Henry's book is considered one of the Author's works, but before the head nun can reply, the roar of a Chernabog interrupts them. That evening, Henry sits at the diner counter while scouring the storybook with a magnifying glass. When Henry gets donut crumbs on the storybook, Regina begins cleaning them off until she notices the page looks different from the others. Incidentally, it is a page from the Pinocchio fairytale, which August put into the book. Even though August has since been reverted to Pinocchio some time ago, Regina suspects he may have knowledge about the Author. Pinocchio proves to remember nothing from his time as August, even with Emma's attempts to trigger his memories, to which Regina vents her frustration on the boy. To cool things down, Emma and Henry take Pinocchio out of the room, and while they are gone, Marco gets into a heated argument with Regina. Regretful of her actions, she later apologizes to Marco for insulting his son. Moved by her sincerity, he gives her August's old bag, which might have something on the Author. Leaving the bag in Henry's hands, he dumps out its contents and finds the door illustration with a sticky note referencing the Author. After Henry's family rescue August, who has since been restored to his former self, from the villains, they bring him to recuperate at the apartment. Henry, while looking over the storybook, keeps watch over him and calls over Emma and Regina when he wakes up. Regina, spying on the villains undercover, asks August about the door illustration and where it could be. While Mr. Gold and his allies believe the door is in another physical location, August reveals the door in the illustration itself is the actual entrance to where the Author is trapped. At the apartment, while Emma and Regina debate what to do about the door illustration, Henry alerts them to August's depleting condition. They take him to the nunnery, where Mother Superior oversees his health. Afterwards, Henry and his two mothers continuing to deceive the villains. Emma conjures a forgery of the door page, but Regina settles for taking a photo of the real one while both pages are placed for safekeeping in the storybook. During the day, Henry becomes alarmed after Emma and Hook fall asleep due to Maleficent's sleeping spell, but he himself remains immune because of previously being under the sleeping curse. Afraid the villains will come looking for the book, he takes it and flees to the mansion. As he waits for David and Mary Margaret to meet up with him, Henry sees a light coming out of the the door illustration's keyhole, which shines onto a table drawer, where he finds a key. Suddenly, Regina shows up with Cruella and Maleficent to retrieve the illustration. With a knowing, silent look from his mother, Henry realizes she wants him to give her the fake page rather than the real one, which he does. After they leave, his grandparents arrive, and as he tells them about the key, they insistently ask him to hand it and the door image to them. Puzzled, he complies and then leaves, carrying the storybook with him. David wishes to burn the door illustration page so Emma will never know their secret, but Snow persuades him that they can't be this selfish. After Emma learns the truth from them, she decides to free the Author from the door, in order to get answers from him about herself. The Author, Isaac, has other plans, however, and escapes after being freed. 'After Third Curse' In the Underworld, Liam tells Hook and Emma about an unsuccessful rebellion that was staged against Hades in the past, and how rumors spread about a special book that could help to defeat him. Emma theorizes there may be an Underworld equivalent of the Once Upon a Time book, which leads them to search for it. Liam comes across the book at the Sorcerer's mansion, but because of a deal with Hades, he rips out the pages containing Hades' story and drops them down a well. While doing book research on Hades in Storybrooke, Emma takes a break by flipping through the storybook. She looks longingly at a depiction of herself and Hook during their time travel stint, and then sets the book aside after getting teary-eyed over the picture. Suddenly, the book glows and opens by itself, revealing Hades' story to her. Emma then realizes Hook, who is still in the Underworld, is helping her. Taking the pages from Hades' story with her, she goes to the town hall, where she tries to bring down Zelena's protection spell. Zelena stops Emma before she can completely decimate the barrier and then picks up the fallen pages. After Henry flees with Violet to New York, they attempt to find out how to destroy magic for good. The pair follow up with a lead at the New York library, where Henry finds multiple Once Upon a Time books bearing a similar likeness to his own book, except they contain a multitude of different stories. As Emma's parents are out searching for a sapling to defeat The Evil Queen, Emma and Hook are cleaning out dangerous objects from Regina's vault, where they intend to imprison the Queen after her capture. Emma, fearful of what will happen if their mission to stop the Queen fails, is unable to stop her hand from trembling. To calm her down, Hook opens the storybook and revisits the tale of Snow White and Prince Charming, and how she was born from true love, the most powerful magic that enables her to do anything. Trivia On Screen Notes= *The book includes the following fairytales and stories: **The Wonderful Wizard of Oz **Alice's Adventures in Wonderland **The Golden Bird **The Adventures of Pinocchio **Snow-White and Rose-Red **The Charles Perrault version of "Cinderella **King Thrushbeard **The Queen Bee **The Water of Life *The picture of Dorothy and the Flying Monkeys is "The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her", one of W. W. Denslow's illustrations from the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In the "Pilot", the opposite page contained an excerpt from the fairy tale of "The Golden Bird". In "Snow Falls", the text has been replaced with a story about how Prince Charming set the trap for Snow White. *The illustration of Alice and the Caterpillar is a colorized version of one of John Tenniel's illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The same illustration is on the cover of the novel that Will Scarlet steals from the library. *Some of the images are illustrations by the famous English book illustrator Arthur Rackham: **"The waiting maid sprang down first and Maid Maleen followed from the fairy tale collection Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales By The Brothers Grimm (1917). It depicts a scene from the Grimm fairy tale "Maid Maleen". **"He played until the room was entirely filled with gnomes", also from Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales By The Brothers Grimm. This image depicts a scene from the Grimm fairy tale "The Gnome". **"The Meeting of Oberon and Titania" (1905), from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. ***The same picture can be seen in Once Upon a Time Volume II in "A Bitter Draught"; however, the angle makes it very unclear. ***A cut-out of Titania from this illustration can also be seen in Henry's room. ***Another cut-out can be seen on one of the missing person posters outside the Storybrooke Town Hall when people are searching for their loved ones after the breaking of the Dark Curse. **An illustration from a 1922 edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne's children's book A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys. It depicts a scene from the story "The Paradise of Children". The same illustration is in Isaac's book Heroes and Villains. Both pages also feature the same excerpt from the fairy tale of "The Golden Bird", indicating that the same prop was used for the interior of both books. **A 1909 illustration from the fairy tale of "Little Red Riding Hood". **"What did she find there but real ripe strawberries", also from Little Brother & Little Sister and Other Tales By The Brothers Grimm. This image depicts a scene from the fairy tale of "The Three Little Men in the Wood". **When he heard Peter's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip", from J.M. Barrie's book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens (1906). **"Fairies Away! We Shall Chide Downright, If I Longer Stay" (1908). It depicts Titania in a scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. **"Preposterous! cried Solomon in a rage", also from Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. *There are some stories that do not exist in the book such as Frankenstein due to unknown reasons. Henry theorized that Dr. Frankenstein's story is not in the book since he does not originate from the Enchanted Forest as the other people in the book do. However, the book does in fact contain images from other realms: Alice and the Caterpillar and Jefferson, in Wonderland, Dorothy Gale and the Flying Monkeys in Oz, and an illustration of Mount Olympus. *The walls and floor on the storybook page with the door, which Henry finds, have the same design as the inside of Jefferson's hat. |-|Goofs= *When Henry is given the storybook in October 2011, he sees a picture of the scene with Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and Pinocchio right before The Blue Fairy's arrival. However, the story of Pinocchio being sent to the Land Without Magic along with Emma was not in the book until August added it several months later.